Technology | The Guardian

Company praised by David Cameron went into administration in February, providing a lesson in how not to manage potentialThe technology entrepreneur Dan Wagner, once one of the highest-profile entrepreneurs of the dotcom era, appeared on television on Monday discussing the future of the high street and why it is struggling to survive. Speaking on Sky News, he said: “There needs to be more of an engagement to drive people out of their homes and into those stores, and make that more compelling.”Wagner did not mention the recent demise of his own retail-linked venture, a business he had hoped would encourage this “engagement”, but instead collapsed into administration in February, having burned through £147m since 2013. Continue reading...

Dover council challenges Vigilant Global’s communications tower proposal and queries whether it would benefit rural KentA financial trading firm’s plan to make millions by building a mast higher than the Shard in rural Kent has suffered a setback after its proposals were challenged by Dover council.Vigilant Global is one of two companies hoping to build a communications mast designed to boost profits by shaving milliseconds off the time it takes to beam information to European markets. Continue reading...

After a drone hits a British Airways plane we take a look at drones being used for cooler purposesNews that a British Airways plane was hit by a drone before landing safely at Heathrow airport has once again highlighted how drones can be a nuisance and, potentially, dangerous. We all know about the military uses of drones (bomb lots of people, surveillance), and how drones can be used for nefarious purposes (theft, voyeurism), but there are actually some pretty cool uses for drones too. Continue reading...

Labour and pilots have called for action including a possible register and ‘geo-fencing’ following collision with BA planeMoves to tighten rules on drones have been promised by the government after the Labour party and pilots’ unions called for urgent action, including a possible register of drone users and “geo-fencing” of airports, after a British Airways plane was struck on its descent into Heathrow.Sunday’s incident is believed to be the first such collision between a passenger plane and a drone, after a series of near misses that led pilots to warn that a strike could be disastrous. The Air Accidents Investigations Branch said it would launch an inquiry. Continue reading...

Weaknesses within mobile phone network interconnection system allows criminals or governments to remotely snoop on anyone with a phoneHackers have again demonstrated that no matter how many security precautions someone takes, all a hacker needs to track their location and snoop on their phone calls and texts is their phone number.

In the 1850s, adulterated food was causing widespread malnutrition. Campaigners, scientists, governments and industry leaders worked together to eventually put it right. Let’s learn from this historyJude Milhon, a cyberfeminist who died in 2003, was one of the first women to witness online harassment. Writing in Wired magazine, she urged women to “toughen up”. “Whether we’re set upon by zealots or bigots or abusively correct politicos, we have to learn to defend ourselves,” she said. The year was 1995, and Jude already had 20 years of experience with harassment. In the early 1970s, she was active on Community Memory, a digital classifieds service in libraries and record shops in Berkeley, California. To reduce the abusive comments, the system charged 25 cents per post.

Last week the cinema chain AMC caused outrage when it announced it would allow phone use in its theatres. But should we be so afraid of augmenting the experience?It is a truth universally acknowledged that millennials are the worst. Here, for example, is a small selection of things millennials have been accused of ruining recently: the workplace, marriage, the economy, the American wine industry, the equestrian industry, nightclubs, the Tour de France, the world. Last week, the latest casualty of millennial machinations looked to be the cinema. On Thursday, AMC, the world’s biggest cinema chain, suggested it might start allowing phone use in cinemas because, hey, that’s what young people want.How do we know that’s what young people want? Have they been holding mobile-phone-lit vigils outside cinemas? Are junior millennials going on strike? Not exactly. Rather, Adam Aron, the 61-year-old CEO of AMC Entertainment, tells us so. In a quote that contains graphic imagery some readers may find disturbing, Aron explains: “When you tell a 22-year-old to turn off the phone … they hear: please cut off your left arm above the elbow.” Continue reading...

If an accidental disclosure from EA is correct, the PS4 has outsold Xbox One almost two to oneTotal sales of the Xbox One haven’t yet hit 20m, if the chief financial officer of EA is to be believed. That’s not a favourable comparison to the PS4, which has sold 35.9m according to Sony.Even though Microsoft quietly stopped telling the world total Xbox One sales in October, it seems it hasn’t been able to keep the rest of the games industry so quiet. In EA’s case, it appears it ended up spilling the beans accidentally. Continue reading...

Its concept may seem silly at first, but the latest title from prodigious indie developer Stephen Lavelle is one of the most difficult puzzle games ever madeWhen Jonathan Blow released his long-awaited adventure game The Witness in January, it attracted critical acclaim, but many reviewers warned that it contains some of the most difficult puzzles they’d ever encountered in a game.Well, Stephen’s Sausage Roll is more challenging than The Witness. Continue reading...

Retail giant makes shows such as Transparent and The Man in the High Castle available via monthly fee as well as annual payment

Comments on the website can exceed 70,000 a day. Yes, there are trolls, but there is also wit, wisdom and a community worth fighting for, says a former moderator

Latest flagship smartphone from Chinese manufacturer has premium build, excellent Leica camera, fast fingerprint scanner – but its EMUI software is not quite up to scratchHuawei’s latest flagship smartphone, the P9, goes toe-to-toe with the best of Samsung and Apple, while undercutting the lot.

The place to talk about games and other things that matterIt’s Monday. Continue reading...

Nitroplus’s heroines are on fighting form, Super Mario Bros 3 gets a fine reboot and a paint pot is the perfect fit for the new iPhoneNitro+ Blasterz: Heroines Infinite Duel

Institute of Directors report says computer-based teaching would prepare students for a future when work is done by robotsHigh-quality, low-cost online courses could be used to shift schools away from being “exam factories” and help students keep pace with the threat of automation, according to a new report by the Institute of Directors.The report argues that the internet allows schools to be more flexible and adapt learning towards “a future in which more and more work is taken over by robots or computers”. Continue reading...

British Airways passenger jet lands safely in London after reported midair collision

Labour leader becomes first major British politician to sign up to the messaging app in a bid to engage younger supportersJeremy Corbyn is lifting the veil on the everyday thrills of being leader of the Labour party with a newly created Snapchat account. Corbyn has become the first major British politician to sign up to the messaging app, and his first day mainly documented him grappling with town hall meetings, journalists and numerous requests for photographs from members of the public. Continue reading...

A new ‘smart mattress’ uses motion sensors to detect whether your other half is being unfaithful. It’s just one of the many ways you can now stoke your real-world insecurities onlineMost lovers only want to know the when and the who-with of a cheating partner, but now a Spanish mattress company has decided to go off the deep end when it comes to love-rat TMI.Durmet’s new £1,200 matress – the Smartress – comes with 24 motion detectors built into the springs – a “lover detection system” that is guaranteed, the makers say, to scan for “suspicious activity” and offer real-time updates, via a phone app, on anyone playing break-the-bed outside of the marriage unit. Continue reading...

Venture capital companies are pouring cash into new tech companies but there are worrying signs the boom is turning to bustStartup culture is now so embedded in our life it seems almost impossible to imagine life without it. Everyone wants a bit of that entrepreneurial magic these days. Even among the big companies, it’s in with the cereal stations, for those all-day millennial breakfasts, and out with the ties, as everyone competes for the coolest office. But there are worrying signs that all is not well in startup land.After a lengthy boom, the financing climate is starting to shift, and startups face an even harder time convincing venture capitalists to loosen the purse strings.

It’s the question facing every website that allows comments: how to curb abuse without neutering the conversationLast month, the technology news site Engadget announced it was “shutting down our comments … see you next week”. The deployment of a new comment system hadn’t worked as hoped. Continue reading...

Through charities, lobbying groups, and head-to-head fights with the FBI, tech titans like Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook wield influence comparable to that of Andrew Carnegie and John RockefellerThe late 19th century was a period known as “the Gilded Age” in America. As the railroads, mining industries and factories boomed, millions of workers were inspired to migrate from Europe, yet the wealth became concentrated among a small set of industrialists such as Andrew Carnegie, a steel magnate, and the oil baron John D Rockefeller. These men wielded massive power through business, political efforts and philanthropy.

Marin is a leading name in the world of mountain biking, but this commuter bike tames the city streets, tooBack in 1986, across the Golden Gate bridge from San Francisco and, no doubt, on a countercultural high, Marin released its first mountain bike. Its chunky wheels and solid frame were built to cope with all that Mount Tamalpais and the Repack Trail could throw at it. It seems ironic to recommend a city bike made by a company whose roots are so firmly in the countryside. But commuting is a tough game these days – and you want a good bike on your side. The brand’s top city cycle is the Fairfax SC6, and it deals brilliantly with everything your ride is going to throw at you. It has a low-maintenance internal gear hub and squeak-free carbon belt as well as decent mudguards, dazzling dynamo lights, a sturdy rack, and puncture-proof tyres… All you need, in fact, to go wild in the city (marinbikes.com).Price: £1,900

NSA whistleblower responds to admission by Australian federal police that it investigated leaks to a Guardian journalist by requesting his metadataEdward Snowden has condemned Australian law enforcement for collecting the communications records of a Guardian journalist without a warrant.

Democrats marched against Democrats in San Francisco and revealed a widening rift between commuting tech workers and their venture capital bossesAfter working in Silicon Valley for years, Morgan Quirk felt good protesting outside the home of a venture capitalist who funded tech startups and fundraisers for Hillary Clinton. He was part of a new splinter group of the liberal party: Democrats marching against Democrats in San Francisco, commuting tech workers against their bosses. Continue reading...

Chris Sims’ account emptied and loan for £8,000 taken out as fraudsters continue to exploit way banks use customers’ mobilesChris Sims was sitting in his Nottingham home a fortnight ago when his iPhone, on the EE network, suddenly stopped working. Within 75 minutes the fraudsters who had hijacked his phone had, through his online banking app, emptied his bank account of £1,200 and applied for an £8,000 loan in his name. But Sims is just the latest victim of a financial scam that is sweeping Britain: sim-swap fraud.When Sims rang EE, it soon emerged that someone posing as his wife had managed to persuade the mobile network to activate a new sim card – in effect giving the fraudsters control of his mobile number. The crooks were then able to reset all his mobile banking passwords, using his phone as identity, and the passwords being sent to the phone. Continue reading...

Blogging site possibly inaccessible since early this week after post about Panama Papers leak, which China internet regulators have moved to censor reports aboutA US-based online publishing platform, Medium, has been blocked in China, according to users and tests by Reuters, the latest service to apparently be affected as Beijing exerts greater control over the internet.Medium, which allows users, including companies and media outlets, to post blogs that readers can annotate, has been inaccessible since at least early this week, according to internet users in China and tests by Reuters using tools developed by anti-censorship watchdog GreatFire.org. Continue reading...

Every Friday we apply critical attention to things that don’t normally get it. This is an important function that might hold civilisation together. Or, more likely, not. Drop your suggestions for reviews in the comments or tweet them to @guideguardian Continue reading...

Complex anonymity tools mean it can cost $100,000 to identify just one hoax caller. But how long will it be before swatting costs someone their life?The first 911 call came at 4.30pm. The caller told dispatchers that a man, woman, and boy had been shot and another child was being held hostage. Police responded in force, sending more than half a dozen cruisers and emergency vehicles to a sprawling house in the affluent Atlanta suburb of Johns Creek.

The entrance hall to Brunel’s 19th-century tunnel under the Thames has been turned into a unique auditorium, complete with the rumble of Tube trainsThe engineers Marc and his son Isambard Kingdom Brunel would have approved, the director of the Brunel Museum Robert Hulse reflected, as he removed the legs from a Bechstein grand piano and helped wrestle it down a twisting staircase into the massive iron shaft they sank into the banks of the Thames 190 years ago. Continue reading...

Brian Message of Courtyard Management says he is ‘praying every night’ that the band decide to put their next record on SpotifyRadiohead have still not decided whether to allow their new album to be streamed on Spotify. Speaking at the Wanstead Tap cafe in London on Thursday night, Brian Message – of the band’s management company, Courtyard Management – said he’s “praying every night” that lead singer Thom Yorke lets Spotify have the album, but a final decision is yet to be made.As previously reported, Message told the audience of just 30 people that the new album would be released in June. He refused to reveal its name, but billled the album as “something that will probably make many of us go, ‘Wow!’”. Continue reading...

Apple Watch expected to last only three years too, while Mac computers should last four, plus Apple slip-up points to OS X rebranding as MacOSApple has said that it expects so-called first owners of £500 iPhones, iPads and Apple Watches to replace them after only three years of use, and Mac computers only four.As part of the company’s new environmental push, which includes its new Apps for Earth campaign with the WWF, Apple has listed how long it expects its products to last for their “first owners” and therefore how much they contribute to the greenhouse gas lifecycle. Continue reading...

From TwoHeadlines to Shiv Integer, artists are subverting Silicon Valley’s tools to artistic endsAt Facebook’s F8 conference in Silicon Valley, David Marcus, the company’s head of messaging, proudly demonstrated its new suite of chatbots. Users can now get in a conversation with the likes of CNN, H&M, and HP, and ask for help shopping, or the latest headlines.The chatbots aren’t very good, but that doesn’t mean Facebook isn’t proud of them anyway: “I guarantee you’re going to spend way more money than you want on this,” Marcus chuckled on stage. Continue reading...

Smartphones, genome sequencing and wearable technology will bring benefits but also challenges to health and social careAlthough not new, the smartphone’s potential is yet to be realised in health and care. Efforts to curate quality apps, for example through an NHS app library, have had little success. Sophisticated apps can fit into health services. Ginger.io offers people with depression or anxiety problems the ability to track their mood and share data with clinicians to offer interventions.

Nicholas Coleridge: ‘There is something extraordinarily alluring about a glossy magazine, the physical quality, particularly a very thick one’Magazines are not suffering anything like the circulation declines experienced by newspapers, according to one of Britain’s leading magazine chiefs.Nicholas Coleridge, president of Condé Nast International, told a Media Society event earlier this week that although magazine sales were “off their top” it was “only by a small amount”. Continue reading...

In the early days, the internet was seen as egalitarian and open. So how did the web become a world of bullies and trolls? Five tales from the frontline of online shamingWhen I bought a computer, in the 1980s, it was a different world. I joined Compuserve, the first major commercial online service in the US, in 1982. It was like Facebook, but all text. Now we would complain it was slow and expensive, but at the time it was radical to be able to sit in your house and talk to people all over the world. Continue reading...

A secretive team has been assigned to explore improvements to the app store, according to reports, including better search and paid options

Top Apple lawyer and FBI executive will testify before lawmakers as heated debate over law enforcement access to encrypted devices continuesApple and the FBI will return to Congress on April 19 to testify before lawmakers about their heated disagreement over law enforcement access to encrypted devices, a congressional committee announced on Thursday.

Traditional searches or wiretaps often require government to eventually notify the people they’ve searched; Microsoft wants the same to apply to emailsMicrosoft sued the US government on Thursday for the right to tell customers when authorities search their email inboxes.In a federal complaint that names the US attorney general, Loretta Lynch, the company argues the government has taken advantage of the consumer trend for storing their private data on tech companies’ servers, rather than storing it on their own devices. This shouldn’t let the government search the digital equivalent of a person’s desk without telling them, Microsoft argues. Continue reading...

Activist working for group dedicated to fighting China’s ‘Great Firewall’ says firms such as Apple should back up its words with actionsWestern companies need to end their hypocrisy over free speech in China, and start helping to end censorship in the country, a leading anti-censorship activist has told the Guardian.One of the three co-founders of GreatFire, an organisation dedicated to fighting the so-called Great Firewall of China, the technological heart of state censorship in the country, said it hurts to see companies such as Apple citing Chinese censorship in their battles with western governments, while co-operating with authoritarian state in order to earn money from its burgeoning middle classes and take advantage of its enormous manufacturing base. Continue reading...

I‘m the Guardian contributor most targeted online. We have to stop the harassment so many women faceWhen you find out that you’re the best at something, normally it makes sense to feel happy. I’m not sure that reaction applies, though, when what you’re top at is being hated. Continue reading...

Yegor Tsvetkov’s project using photos of strangers on St Petersburg metro shows how easy it is to track peopleA Russian photographer has proved how easy it is to track down people on social media using facial recognition software.Yegor Tsvetkov took photos of strangers on St Petersburg’s metro and used a facial recognition app which trawls through profiles on VKontakte, Russia’s biggest social network, to track down their online profiles. Continue reading...

‘When you tell a 22-year-old to turn off the phone, they hear please cut off your left arm above the elbow,’ said AMC boss, who has since taken to Twitter to allay fearsThe head of a major US cinema chain has suggested that ‘texting-friendly’ screens could soon become a reality.Related: If Sean Parker has his way, opening night for movies will be in your living room Continue reading...

Introducing RoBoHon, a smartphone which doubles up as a tiny robot, created by Japanese electronics firm Sharp. The robo-phone can walk around, read out your messages, and has a projector embedded in its head so it can beam images onto flat surfaces. But would you pay the hefty price tag of ¥198,000 (£1,282) for it? Continue reading...

RoBoHoN is adorable, can recognise your face, read your messages aloud, wake you up and announce phone calls, but is probably out of your price rangeThe cutest robo-smartphone ever made is hitting shelves in Japan next month - but is it cute enough to drop almost £1,300?RoBoHoN (which translates roughly as “heart moving phone”) is an adorable tiny robot, which doubles up as a smartphone. Or is it a smartphone that doubles up as a robot? Continue reading...

We live in an age of undies innovation: from self-medicating bras to briefs that smell of breakfast or hide a weapon (and that’s not even a euphemism)

After the difficulties experienced by Twitter bot Tay, the new service is providing amusement while learning how to automatically caption imagesAfter the somewhat awkward experience last month of having an AI Twitter bot go full-on racist in a few hours once it interacted with humans, Microsoft have released a new AI experiment on to the internet - CaptionBot.The idea is that you upload a photo to the service, and it tries to automatically generate a caption that describes what the algorithm sees. You are then able to rate how accurately it has detected what was on display. It learns from the rating, and in theory, the captions get better. Continue reading...

‘Groundbreaking’ changes strengthen EU privacy protections, enshrine right to be forgotten and give regulators wide-reaching powersThe European parliament has voted through tougher rules on data protection, aimed at boosting privacy and giving authorities greater powers to take action against companies that breach the rules.

A 360-degree livestream video shows the pioneering perspective of a cancer keyhole procedure carried out by Dr Shafi Ahmed in theatre at Barts Health NHS Trust

Cameron wants to try multi-monitor computing, like the Microsoft co-founder is known to do, but ideally without creating a spaghetti junction of wiresMulti-monitor computing is an idea that has been challenging me for some time – that and a spaghetti junction of wires.I have super-powerful Alienware laptop but there is only one HDMI port, and it doesn’t like running HDMI and anything else simultaneously.I am wondering if I should build a PC that will have video cards and ports to support three screens and have a separate, dedicated travel laptop. What do you think? Continue reading...

Company’s new Messenger chatbot prompts nonsensical answers and unrelenting spam, which risks tipping users over the edgeIf bots are the new apps, we’re in for a bombardment of spam that could force you into blocking brands, bots and services, if Facebook’s new chatbots are anything to go by.